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The younglings play by the bank of a feeble stream, while they stand a ways back, the sounds of laughter and curiousity floating to them on the planet’s humid breath.
Luke’s loose tunic is fawn brown and worn, flecked with greenery from the hike through the valley. It still sticks to his shoulders along a path of perspiration, where a child had clung tightly to him. He crouches down, tearing a stem of grass, brings it to his lips and gnaws on it absentmindedly as he surveys the group of children. Din imagines he takes a head count again and again, each child a precious treasure whose guardianship he is entrusted with.
In that moment he looks young and unsure, and for a minute Din wonders if all the stories he has heard are true. Of Death Stars destroyed, of a dark hooded figure who is a hero and a hellion. The ones he sometimes relays to Luke when they’re laying in the afterglow together, saying anything that comes to mind to fill the gaps of when they’re apart. They always make Luke laugh, brushing them off. Din isn’t sure he’ll ever really get the truth out of Luke, no matter what methods he employs.
Sometimes he himself finds them difficult to believe. Luke is kind, good humoured, and peaceful. He seems well suited to the simple life he and the children have here, to meditation by the streams, and catching flutterflies with the children in the overgrown gardens. He laughs easily here, in linen tunics and scuffed animal hide boots, the skin around his eyes crinkling in joy.
It’s the version of Luke that Din likes the best, when he finds him in the thicket he affectionately calls a garden, meditating with the morning sun dappling across his skin. When Din catches Luke swathed in his tunic first thing in the morning, cradling a cup of caf in two hands and savouring a quiet moment as he takes the first sip before he’s in the thick of the chaos that is his students.
Din feels as if this version of Luke is the one he knows the best, and everyone else knows the least. As if Luke’s greatest disguise is his tousled hair and relaxed posture, not the phantom dressed in sharp black lines.
“My family were moisture farmers. I was a farm boy, you know.” Luke says suddenly, his eyes never leaving his charges. And Din does know, but he hums under his breath in acknowledgement, considering the comment quietly.
He keeps an eye out for Grogu, who toddles in the shallows, interacting with an animated young girl who seems to be attempting to catch small amphibians on behalf of the child. A little time passes before he glances back and asks quietly “Would you like to be again? A farmer?”
The question seems to break the spell holding Luke’s attention, he looks up at Din and flashes a roguish smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, removes the sprout from between his lips and says “Sometimes I still feel like I am. So much to tend to.” it’s Din who looks away first, a particularly raucous shout from the children causing him to feel uneasy. The stream is shallow but the child is small, and while the little creature can hold his own against a mudhorn, he also could fall flat on his face and drown. It didn’t hurt to look.
Grogu is a couple of steps from the banks of the stream and it was only one of the students shocked at being splashed by another, but he lingers, looking. The scene is a pleasant one, the babble of the stream and the undulating reeds along the bank lazily drinking in the warmth of the overhead sun. He can feel Luke watching him, gaze as unnerving as ever, even here where he is less Jedi Master and more good-humoured wrangler of a rag-tag herd of children. Where he is the Luke that Din knows, the one he longs to return to each time he leaves.
“Farming is a hard occupation. Thankless, but necessary. Civilizations can’t survive without farmers.” He says thoughtfully. For a minute he stands beside Jedi Master Luke Skywalker again, and Din can practically hear Luke’s bones straining from the proverbial weight on his shoulders.
He knows Luke takes the raising of these youngsters seriously, knows they represent a grander calling, that Luke’s dedication to this cause runs deep. Not unlike his own creed, the reason he’s a glinting beacon in beskar despite the muggy humidity that make the clothes Luke wears stick unnaturally along the line of his back. In the end this underlying conviction is the reason Din has never looked back when he leaves Grogu here, in Luke’s care.
When he finds himself with a quiet moment in the dark of space, and thinks of the little creature and the blue-eyed man who he has left him with, it is never due to doubt. Only ever loneliness, for the rumpled sheets, the leaking ceiling during a monsoon, the warm weight of his son in his arms and the little whisps of breath when he carries the little creature to bed, the warmth of Luke’s skin when he joins him in bed.
He has a half-formed apology on his tongue when Luke snickers, the serious facade falling away “I guess you’re right. It is pretty thankless.” He sounds resigned, the words lacking any bitterness. With a rueful shake of his head, Luke looks back to the children, sighing in what Din finds himself hoping is contentment.
“I am thankful.” Din says plainly. Luke doesn’t look up, and simply replies “I know.”
Damn the Force, Din thinks to himself, as they lapse into companionable silence.